Paul Allio

Following over two dozen different individuals in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, acceptance and rejection in the realm of romance is examined.

Based on the comic strip about the hopeless but lovable slacker Gaston who drives his colleagues crazy at the office.

A young man is checked into a mental hospital for unexplained reasons.

Max, who dreams of adventures, abandons his studies at 18 to become involved in the navy. He becomes the sailor 512.

Michel left Marseilles to Italy when he was twenty years old. Courageous and active, he has succeeded in the construction industry. Thirty years later, his return to Marseilles, for his aunt's burial will abruptly change the life of all of his family, who was first fascinated by his social success. He is regarded as the son who made it like wonder. Michel is the only one who has emigrated. They have all remained in the home country ("le pays") and their social status has hardly changed: workmen, small employees, craftsmen, all living in a modest framework.

In 1941, those who had remained around too long to completely escape the Nazi blitzkrieg had one small, slim chance to escape persecution. They could travel to Marseilles and attempt to get the servile but still nominally independent government of Vichy France to grant them an exit visa. Then they could take passage to safer climes on one of the neutral vessels that stopped there. This drama, based on a novel by Anna Seghers, follows the fates of a small group of desperate people who are attempting to do just that.

In the streets of Marseille, René Allio encounters, once again, the spaces of his childhood, and remembers his family history.